


Floatation

by morganya



Category: Bandom
Genre: Gen, Sensory Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-02
Updated: 2010-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 08:30:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Gabe’s New Age tendencies backfire on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Floatation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for hc_bingo.

Gabe seeks out the alternative. He's done tarot readings and past life regression and chakrassage. He has a shaman who he sees a few times a year just to help him figure things out. He's done the fasts and the cleanses and the detoxes, including the one that left him bloated and zit-faced after two weeks of drinking heavily spiced hot water. He's always looking for the next new experience.

So his ears immediately perk up when his friend Linda tells him about the LA floatation therapy place she'd just been to. "It's like being back inside the womb," she says dreamily. "And after a while the weirdest shit starts to happen…I heard music, you know? An entire orchestra playing just for me."

As far as he's concerned, an hour and a half floating in warm water while his brain astrally projects itself is time well spent. He's got a few days off after the promotional thing in Los Angeles anyway, and Pete's been more or less at loose ends since the thing with his band. Gabe figures he's only doing his duty as a friend to help Pete get in touch with the infinite.

Of course Pete has to give him shit about it. Gabe texts him the link to the company's website and adds, _you and me. i'll make an appt. your mind'll be blown_ and then Pete calls him up and says, "Isolation tanks? That's the dumbest idea you've ever had."

"It's called _floatation therapy_ ," Gabe says. "Jesus, get your terminology right."

"I saw _Altered States_ like seven times, dude. The last thing my wife needs is for me to come home as an amoeba."

"Oh, don't be such a pussy," Gabe says. "You know what my friend told me about the time she went there? She started hearing symphonies and shit, man. And they _don't play music in the tanks_."

"Psychotic breaks. Fantastic."

"You want to spend your whole life _blind_?" Gabe says. "This is a golden opportunity. Everybody in the whole world would be better off if they just stopped listening to the shit they get fed about prescribed methods of salvation and –"

"Professor," Pete says. "My kid is yanking on my other earlobe right now and I left my class notes in the bathroom. Can we take a rain check on the theology lecture?"

"You'll never learn if you don't put some effort in it," Gabe says. The pause gives him time to reflect. He says, "How close is he? I didn't mean to say the s-word." He thinks a minute. "Or the p-word."

"I've given up all hope of limiting his vocabulary," Pete says. "So this is really how you want to spend your time off?"

"How you and I are going to spend my time off," Gabe corrects. "God, if you're going to be a…a chicken about it, then you can just go give your tootsies a pedicure or something. Then we'll go do LA."

"As far as I'm concerned, pedicures and isolation tanks _are_ LA," Pete says. "Text me and I'll pick you up."

" _Floatation therapy_ ," Gabe says, but Pete's already hung up.

Victoria gets excited when he tells her about the place, and she makes him send her the website address so she can look into it when she gets some time. Nate probably inwardly rolls his eyes, but whatever, Nate's answer to life's ills is always a case of beer and some good porn. Alex tells him about the time his fiancée took him to some place in New York and he started seeing rainbows and sunspots in the tank. Ryland makes the same _Altered States_ reference as Pete, and Gabe considers that enough of a reason to spend the entire plane ride to LAX making fun of him. Ryland takes it like a man.

His band is pretty much used to him by now.

He's never been able to sleep on planes, and when they get to the hotel he's too worried about the show to really nap. Instead he sets up an appointment for the floatation therapy and texts Pete the information. Two seconds after he sends it off he thinks of something else to say and fires off, _you should ditch the premiere & come see us 2nite. well get you on stage and make every1 go apeshit_.

Pete texts him back, _i'm just a socialite now. can't fight fate._

The venue's sound system is bullshit, but the crowd doesn't seem to mind. He does Jägerbombs backstage with two of the other bands until the sun starts to come up, which means he gets back to the hotel shit-wrecked and wired from Red Bull. He manages to pass out for a couple hours until the concierge calls to get him up.

All in all, he looks pretty good for running on alcohol fumes and almost no sleep. Pete still meets him at the hotel entrance with, "So did you wind up having to post bail last night or something?"

"I'm slippery. They can't pin shit on me," Gabe says, and heaves himself into the passenger seat. "Where's your lovely bride?"

"Her dad said that we needed our guy time, so she took the little dude over to their house for the afternoon." Pete turns on the ignition. "Joe seems to think I'm going to take you to a hunting lodge or something."

"Hey, spas totally count as guy time," Gabe says. "Get with the program." He folds his swim trunks in his lap and then adjusts his sunglasses against the light.

The spa has thick green carpeting in the reception area and rushing waterfall sounds playing when they walk in. Pete looks at Gabe after he gives his name at the desk and says, "Floatation, huh? Not isolation?"

"You'll feel like a whole new person," Gabe says. "It'll be awesome."

"Uh-huh," Pete says, but then wanders off to look at the magazines until they call him in.

He'd been sort of hoping that he and Pete would go in together, but instead one of the therapists leads him into a small white room, where she shows him the bathroom where he's meant to scrub off afterwards and the actual tank, which is squat and white and looks a little like an ice machine. She smiles brightly and says, "We'll be right outside if you need us!"

Gabe puts in the provided earplugs and opens the tank door. It smells like a combination of public pool and public beach, and for a second he's not sure how he's going to manage to fit his legs into what looks like a tiny amount of space. Finally he manages to slide in and pulls the door shut behind him.

It's like lying in a warm salt water bath with all the lights off, and for a moment he's content to just float in the dark and wiggle his fingers and toes. The earplugs effectively seal off everything that the tank's insulation doesn't catch, and the really weird thing is that the water must be heated to somewhere around body temperature, so he can't hear any splashing or even really feel anything.

Time to stop fucking around. He closes his eyes and waits for enlightenment.

He waits a minute, two, three. The only thing he's getting is bored.

His head still aches and he feels groggy, and he's sure that's fucking him up somehow. If he could let go enough, he could probably see something, leave his body behind and have some grand revelation. He wishes he could hear something.

Everything is just too damned quiet, and if he opens his eyes he can't see anything. He can't really tell where his body is, like gravity had just forgotten about him, and he kind of wants to stand up but he's not sure how tall the tank is. It feels small.

Maybe he should have thought of this beforehand, that he signed up for ninety minutes of staring at the inside of his head, and he's always had an uneasy relationship with his own thoughts. The air is too close and too hot and it reeks of saline.

"Fuck this," Gabe says, and he feels his mouth move but there's no sound coming back to him, and everything around him is pitch black and he doesn't know where he is and something awful is starting to twist around in his brain.

He manages to force himself up, banging his head against something hard and coated with damp, and he's trying to find the door and yelling, "Let me out, let me out, let me out," gasping and choking on salt water.

Someone finally opens up the door and he doesn't get out as much as he lunges out, sprawling across the tile, soaking wet and shivering. The lights in the room stab him right in the eye and there's one of the therapists above him, pale and saying, "Mr. Saporta?"

He starts to answer but before he gets there he realizes that he's going to throw up. He struggles up off the floor on wavery legs and makes a dash for the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. He huddles over the toilet, coughing and spitting bile that leaves his throat scalded.

"Uh, Mr. Saporta?" someone asks from outside the door. "Are you…um."

"Go away," Gabe says, because he doesn't have the wherewithal to be polite right now. "I'll be out in a second."

He figures whoever it is is only too happy to oblige him, because he hears the other door opening and closing. He spits into the toilet and wipes his mouth. He's still shaky but he thinks the worst is over.

He's going to have to go back out and face Pete.

He shouldn't have gotten drunk last night. He shouldn't have made them open the door. He should have stayed there and sucked it up and accepted the experience for what it was. Now the staff are probably outside calling the cops and Pete's never going to let him live this down.

He forces himself to get up off the floor (his knees are bruised and standing hurts like hell), gets into the shower and sluices everything off. There's no hairdryer, which means that his hair is going to go completely out of control, but everyone here probably thinks he's a crazy person anyway.

He's going to get out of the shower, put his game face on and show everyone that he's fine. Maybe no one will care that he just flipped out if they can see that he's doing great now. He's going to get dressed and go wait for Pete and then they can go do LA.

His plan goes to shit once he makes it back out to reception and he still feels as if he's about to crawl out of his skin. Everything seems too much; the lights and the music and the people behind the desk all seem to be crashing into him, but he forces a smile and pays for his time like he's still a decent member of society.

Pete comes back out eventually, wearing his I'm-incredibly-bored-but-need-to-be-polite smile, and when he turns it on Gabe, Gabe's impulse to snap, "Fuck you, everything's great," but he bites his tongue at the last second.

"How'd it go?" Pete says, wandering over.

"Fine," Gabe says and forces his throbbing legs to stand up. "You done?"

"Yeah," Pete says. "I need to pay them. It was really fine?"

"Fantastic," Gabe says, and retreats to the parking lot.

Pete finally catches up to him and says, "Slow down."

"Sorry," Gabe says and comes to a stop. He hates the air in Los Angeles; he can practically taste pollution on his tongue. "Where's the car?"

"Over here. Yo, I need to get back to my place for a little while. I forgot about this thing I need to do."

It's the best thing Gabe could have heard; he's got no desire to go out and hit the town right now. Still, he feels obligated to make an effort, so he says, rather pathetically, "But we're doing LA."

"We can _always_ do LA. You want to come with me and hang out at the house? Or do you want me to just drop you off at the hotel?" Pete pauses a second. "You look a little sick, dude."

"Hangover," Gabe says. "It's fine. I've got nothing to do, I can walk your dogs or something."

"Good luck with that," Pete says and lets him in the car.

Gabe spends the ride back with his hat pulled over his sunglasses, trying to keep himself together with his arms folded over his chest. If Pete decides to take it upon himself to ask if everything's fine, Gabe is going to bite his face off, but he's oblivious, changing radio stations and babbling about landmarks.

The house is thankfully quiet when they get in, the dogs off in the backyard. Pete says, "You want a sandwich or something?"

Gabe shakes his head. He doesn't feel all that sick anymore, but he also doesn't trust his stomach to handle food right now. "Do what you gotta do. I'll amuse myself. Got any DVDs or anything?"

"There's some in our bedroom. Pick out whatever."

Gabe wanders off to Pete and Ashlee's room. There are DVDs piled up by the entertainment center, stacked up haphazardly, and Gabe stands and stares at them.

It occurs to him that going off by himself was a really stupid thing to do. Except he's locked into it now, and he doesn't think that rushing off to find Pete and clinging onto him while he's trying to work is a really good idea either.

He stares at the DVDs some more, like that would make making a decision less daunting, and finally he just gives up and pulls his shoes off. He folds himself up on the bed, digging his nails into his palm to convince himself he's still around.

After a minute Pete pokes his head around the doorframe. He's carrying a plate and a glass of something. "Hey, my library's not _that_ bad."

"Couldn't find anything," Gabe says.

"Huh. Let me see. Here, hold this." Pete shoves the plate into his hands and starts going through the piles.

Gabe looks at the plate. It seems like it's just a regular peanut butter sandwich, which is the extent of Pete's culinary skills. It still smells pretty good, and it looks like Pete and Ashlee have the good kind of peanut butter, with dark caramel-colored streaks running through it. Gabe turns the plate around in his hands.

Pete puts in something foreign and turns the sound up. "The guy wasn't there, so I figured fuck him, anyway. You sure you don't want a sandwich?"

"Don't know," Gabe says. The smell of the peanut butter is starting to make him hungry; he actually hasn't really eaten much since he got into town. "Let me just grab a little bite of yours. I'll see how it goes."

"Sure." Pete flings himself down beside Gabe and fiddles with the remote. Gabe takes a tentative bite off one end of the sandwich. It's mostly crust, but he swallows it and waits to see if his stomach goes into revolt. He tries a normal bite when everything seems stable; what that does is make him genuinely, ravenously hungry and he's eaten the entire half before he knows what he's doing.

"Dude," Pete says. "You _inhaled_ that. Did you even swallow?"

"I _always_ swallow," Gabe says. The other half of the sandwich looks back at him from the plate, bright strawberry jam and good squishy bread.

"You might as well have the rest of it," Pete says. "If you want."

Gabe doesn't need to be told twice. He wolfs the rest down and pats his stomach. Pete takes the plate away from him and puts it on the bedside table.

"Good?"

"The best," Gabe says. The people in the movie are murmuring something in what he thinks is Korean. Pete hands over his glass.

"Chocolate soy. It's good for you."

"Depends on who you're asking," Gabe says, but drinks it anyway. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. Pete takes the glass back.

"It's my turn to do the dishes anyway."

"Shit," Gabe says. "I ate your lunch."

"I can make _another_ one, Gabe."

"I guess." Gabe looks at the TV. "I kind of freaked out in there, Pete."

Pete rubs his back. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I know. Try not to beat yourself up about it, okay?"

Something about his voice makes Gabe go boneless with relief, and he slumps back onto the bed. Pete extricates his hand and starts petting Gabe's hair.

"I thought you were going to give me shit about it," Gabe mumbles.

"Dude, if you hadn't freaked out, the odds were pretty good that _I_ would have," Pete says. "Really, the choices were get bored, go to sleep or freak the fuck out. I just got bored. It could have easily gone the other way. We could have gotten back here and you'd be the one making me sandwiches and watching movies with me."

"I just figured — wait. I thought that one was yours."

Pete shrugs.

"You _tricked_ me. Fucker."

"Yeah, yeah. I made you a sandwich of lies and deception. Sue me already."

"Shithead," Gabe says, but he scooches down and puts his head on Pete's chest. "Don't tell Ash about this. She'll laugh at me."

"My wife's way nicer than me," Pete points out. "She'll be glad you got out mostly in one piece."

"Mostly."

"You think you're going to be okay?" Pete keeps stroking his hair.

"I'm just pissed I couldn't handle it," Gabe says. Pete's shirt smells like detergent. "I'll have to try it again."

"You are a glutton for punishment."

"Not gonna say an isolation tank kicked my ass," Gabe says, and yawns. "If you keep doing that, dude –"

"Big deal," Pete says. Gabe kind of likes the rumble in his chest when he speaks. "So when Ash comes home, she'll going to want to know everything you've been up to since you last saw her. And Bronx is going to want to spend some time playing trucks with his uncle Gabe. The whole thing."

"Yeah," Gabe says. "Yeah, that's cool."

"Try to sleep for a while," Pete says. "I'm just going to hang out here."

"Okay," Gabe says, and sleeps.


End file.
